Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (game)
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is a GameCube game and the first in a series of games. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles takes place in a fantasy world consumed by miasma, an evil mist that saps the life force of the sapient races. To protect themselves against the miasma, the people power fragments of crystals with a water-like substance called myrrh, which generates a field of protection. Gameplay The game is a realtime dungeon crawler, in which each player controls one character from the Tipa caravan (or an anonymous other caravan when importing a character from another Memory Card with the Bring a Friend option.) In each dungeon, the Crystal Chalice generates a small field of safety, outside of which players will take gradual damage over time from the miasma. The Chalice cannot move on its own, requiring someone to carry it at all times - in single player, Mog will do this. In multiplayer, one player must pick it up and walk with it. Players do not have experience or levels; see Artifacts for details on character progression. Character creation There are four races available, with four appearances each for male and female that may be selected on creation: The Clavats are the all-around race, and in the setting are mostly farmers. ** Clavats use one-handed swords and their special armor is the Shield. * The Clavat Defense action is to hold up their shield indefinitely and protect against any attacks, but only from the front. * Clavats are good at just about everything and are the only race who can wear the Gaea Plate. The Selkies are an agile, thief-orientated race, and in the setting are thieves and dishonest merchants. * Selkies utilize strange banjo-like clubs called rackets and their special armor is the Belt. * The Selkie Defense action is a quick backflip that evades almost any attack with good timing. * Selkies charge their Focus Attack twice as quickly. The Lilties are a short, apple-like race similar to dwarves. In the setting, they are blacksmiths, merchants and warriors. * Lilties utilize two-handed spears and their special armor is the Gloves. The Yukes are a slender, bird-like race covered in metallic armor hiding most of their features. * Yukes utilize hammers and their special armor is the Sallet (helmet.) * The Yuke Defense action is an invisibility cloak. * Yukes charge magic spells twice as quickly. It's a VERY good idea to have at least one character available of every race, for party versatility. Years Every year, the towns of the world send out caravans to gather myrrh. Three drops of myrrh are enough for that year - and therefore, every three dungeons, the year ends and the next begins. Dungeons that don't have myrrh available because they were already completed recently do not count towards the year ending. There is no limit to the number of years the player may spend on the game, and characters will never age or die off. The earliest the player can possibly complete the game is in year 5, but the caravanners will likely not be anywhere near strong enough to defeat the final boss at this point. Each year, the world changes slightly - the Miasma Streams change their elements, the player will be teleported back to Tipa, and for the first seven years or so, specific geographic or storyline changes will occur such as Goblin Wall appearing in year 2 and the River Jegon drying up. Memories Every time the player completes a dungeon, visits a town for the first time, or witnesses a random encounter on the world map, a Memory is added to each player's currently selected character and is written down in the diary. It is imperative for every character that will participate in the final dungeon to gather as many Memories as possible. World map Outside of towns and dungeons, Player 1 moves the caravan along pathways on a map to select a destination (either a town or a dungeon.) Occasionally, the player's movement will be interrupted by a cinema scene in which the Tipa caravan meets another town's caravan or another traveler, which will add a memory to every active character. Dungeons Every year, the caravan requires three drops of myrrh for their town's crystal. Therefore, completing three dungeons that have myrrh available will end that year and begin the next. In a dungeon, all players may move freely in realtime. As multiplayer requires the use of the GameBoy Advance, which has only four action buttons, the game has a very strange control scheme - L and R change the character's current action, and the A button performs that action. B is used to perform contextual actions such as read signs. Every character always has Attack and Defend as their first two command slots and begins with two command slots after it, in which may be placed any item, Ring, or Magicite. The player may acquire up to four more command slots (and a temporary fifth in some dungeons) by collecting Pocket artifacts during gameplay. Dungeon enemies have more health and are generally more difficult when more players are connected at once, and higher scores are required to unlock higher artifact sets. See Artifacts. Magicite Characters' only means of attack other than the melee Attack option is to gather Magicite in each dungeon, large spheres containing magical essence. One Magicite will allow endless casting of a single kind of spell - each spell has a uniquely colored Magicite. Magicite is lost upon leaving the dungeon, but characters can earn special artifacts called Rings that act as one instance of the given Magicite. For instance, the Ring of Fire allows characters to enter a dungeon with Fire already on their command list. Every Magicite has a Ring associated with it, except for Clear. Although all magic can be used endlessly so long as the proper Magicite is equipped to a command slot, they require time to charge up. Yukes charge magic twice as quickly as the other races. Spell fusion Spell fusion is the act of casting several Magicites on top of each other, thus combining them into a stronger or even entirely different spell. In single-player, this is done by equipping valid combinations next to each other in the command list, at which point they will fuse automatically. They can then be split, and / or fused further, by selecting this in the menu. Fused spells take much longer to cast than individual Magicite spells. In multiplayer, this is not possible - instead, players must target the same area and unleash valid combinations of spells with specific timing. Even the same Magicite, with different timing, will produce different spells. Mog can also perform a similar but not identical action to multiplayer spell fusion if he is not holding the chalice; he will cast either Fire, Blizzard, or Thunder and can fuse it with the player's spells accordingly. Bonus condition Upon entering a dungeon, every player is assigned a random Bonus Condition that will determine their score for that dungeon. The precise amount of points earned or lost for following or spiting the condition depends on the individual dungeon. In addition, players earn 1 point for every monster killed and for every new item picked up. Items dropped by other players do not count towards either the passive item pickup bonus or any item pickup bonus conditions. The score of all players combined will determine the random artifact set the players may choose from at the end of the dungeon - the longer the dungeon, and the more players, the more points are needed for a chance at the higher end sets. For instance, Conall Curach is a very long dungeon and requires far more points to have a chance at the highest set than River Belle Path, which is very short. Artifacts and Treasures Artifacts are special items earned by characters by completing dungeons that increase stats and add new abilities. Artifacts are the only means other than crafting equipment to improve a character's abilities, as no experience or levels exist in the game, and are the most important aspect of gameplay. Throughout each dungeon, the players may find treasure chests containing special unique items. These items will then be listed in the Treasure section on the menu of the character who took the item, meaning players must compete to acquire them as they are not shared. Four such treasures will be found in each dungeon - no more and no less - and the characters will not keep these treasures upon leaving. At the end of the dungeon, these four treasures are added to the artifact pool, and one of four sets of four other artifacts will be randomly selected based partially on the players' performance in the dungeon (see Bonus condition.) The final eight artifacts will be presented, from which set each character may pick ONE artifact to keep permanently. The player with the highest individual score picks first, and presumably in the case of a tie, Player 1 takes priority, then Player 2, etc. Every dungeon has a total of eight artifact sets available, not counting those in treasure chests - see Cycles. Letters When earning a myrrh drop - not when clearing a dry dungeon - every character who participated in the dungeon will receive a letter from a member of his or her family, or from Roland, the Tipa elder. The character must reply to the letter, and may optionally send home money or an item. Sending a good reply, especially with the proper item, raises that family member's mood - sending a bad reply, especially with no item, will lower it. Answering these letters will affect the family's mood towards the character. The father's mood determines discounts from the three business families (Merchant, Blacksmith, and Tailor.) The moods will also increase the yield of any trees grown from seeds sent home. Earning three such myrrh drops / letters will end that year. Cycles When a dungeon is completed, its myrrh tree runs dry and will remain so for two years, after which it will refill and advance the dungeon one cycle. Advancing the dungeon one cycle will shift its available random artifact sets up two levels, making the old lowest two unavailable, the old highest two the new lowest two, and adding two new sets as the new highest two. It will also make the entire dungeon much more difficult by upgrading the enemies to tougher versions or adding new enemies entirely. The boss will almost always upgrade its speed and attack strength, and usually will learn a new attack. Dungeons stop advancing upon reading the third cycle, at which point even the River Belle Path is impossibly difficult for an unprepared character; be careful not to advance the dungeons too early in the game or none of the caravanners will be able to fight the tougher enemies. All artifacts in the game are available in third cycle dungeons; none can be missed permanently. Towns A town is any area in which all players may move their characters, but in which no monsters are present to fight. In these areas, no Crystal Chalice is present (as the town's crystal provides the necessary protection) and the characters do not have their weapons ready. There are also shop NPC's who will provide services such as selling resources or crafting weapons and armor. Gameplay is otherwise identical to that of the dungeons. Crafting Other than artifacts, players obtain designs / recipes and materials to create new equipment. Every race has a unique armor piece that may only be equipped by that race. For instance, only Clavats can use Shields and only Selkies can use Belts. Although recipes and ingredients can be traded between characters, finished equipment cannot, even if the desired destination character can use the equipment in question. Story Note - I never did complete the game and see all of its optional scenes myself, nor did I play the prequel, and I may be a bit confused on some parts of the story. ~The Man~ 04:26, March 10, 2012 (UTC) Backstory Long ago, the world was protected from evil by a Great Crystal and the people were united in a golden age of prosperity. But one day, a meteor fell from the heavens and shattered the Crystal into many fragments. From then on, the people were beset by miasma, a terrible fog that festered evil monsters and sapped away the strength of all sapient beings. Within this meteor were contained a parasite that produced miasma and monsters, and two supernatural beings, Raem and his sister Mio, both of whom fed upon memories. The sister ate sparingly and recycled many memories - the source of myrrh - while Raem ravenously devoured all the memories he could find, causing the people of the world to become forgetful, and the miasma to grow denser, with more and more monsters spawning from the crash site to terrorize the world. Present story Each year, every town sent out a caravan to collect myrrh to power that town's crystal fragment. One town, Tida, never saw their caravan again. It is said that every resident remained steadfast in the town square, hoping for their caravan to arrive, until the miasma took them all. This caravan contained a young man named Hurdy who had hoped to rid the world of miasma. He recruited the Black Knight to assist him and successfully found the Unknown Element and reached Mag Mell, but Raem devoured his and the Black Knight's memories. Hurdy then stayed in Shella with no memory of his adventure (although it's possible he and Gurdy are the same person), while Raem tormented the Black Knight, who became an insane wanderer who cut down everyone who encountered him. The players control up to four adventurers from the town of Tipa (which may be named as desired) on their annual journeys to collect myrrh, and may uncover the story of Hurdy and the Black Knight and finish what they couldn't - finding Mag Mell and defeating Raem to rid the world of miasma forever.